


Countdown

by coldcobalt



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Gen, Pre-Doomstar Requiem, Prophecy, angst sustains me, some light body horror, the water god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-29
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-14 09:26:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14133153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldcobalt/pseuds/coldcobalt
Summary: Writing used to be easy for you, hell, sometimes it seemed like all you had to do was sleep, and when you woke there'd be words in your head screaming to be written down. But lately, all you can see is the end of the world.Written for Hearts & Guts 2013 over on LJ.





	Countdown

**Author's Note:**

> Prophet Nathan is best Nathan.

You could probably handle the Dethsub, you think to yourself, if it weren't for all the fucking fish. 

Big ones, little ones, ones with giant jaws and teeth straight out of a horror movie, all swimming by your window twenty-four hours a day. You could probably go the rest of your life without seeing another fish.

Everything's been different since the funeral; after you apologized to Pickles, after all hell broke loose, after that dickweed Magnus stabbed Toki, and in the confusion dragged the kid away. After you found out Dethklok was supposed to save the world somehow.

You're handling the isolation pretty well, though; better than the other guys, anyway. Since the Dethsub went down for the last time, none of you have spoken much, not leaving your respective rooms unless forced, all nursing quiet, private feelings of dread.

The few times you've seen the others, they've pretended to be alright, but you've known them long enough to know they're faking; Pickles perpetually walking the fine line between tipsy and trashed, Skwisgaar refusing to speak to you, other than an occasional “fucks off, Na'tan.” You think Murderface has started horkin' up his food again, but you don't know for sure.

To be totally, brutally honest, it's not the fish that bother you, it's the fact that the guys you've known for fifteen years are avoiding you. Almost as if – and this is a department you have experience with – as if they're scared of you. It's not like you miss them or anything, but it's just too damn depressing to sit around and drink alone.

So instead, you try to do what you've always done; when you're nervous or confused, when you come back from a speech feeling like the biggest goddamn retard on the face of the earth, when anyone in you band gets fucked up or hurt and you're forced to stand by without saying a word. You write.

Surprisingly, this afternoon (or morning or night; it doesn't matter this far below the ocean's surface), nothing comes. Writing used to be easy for you, hell, sometimes it seemed like all you had to do was sleep, and when you woke up there'd be words in your head, screaming to be written down. But lately, all you can see is the end of the world. 

It's a little disconcerting; you haven't been sleeping so well the past couple days, and the things you've been writing have been...strange, even by Dethklok standards: phrases in languages you don't speak, words you can't possibly know. Stanzas that seem more like incantations than lyrics. It's almost enough to stop you from trying, but it's not like there's anything else to do thousands of feet underwater.

So you sit down in your chair, notebook in front of you, and attempt what you do best.

\-----------------

You open your eyes to a barren plain far far below your dangling feet, surrounded by air that smells of sulfur and ash. The sky above is somehow wrong; dark and seemingly infinite, and your head is wreathed in alien stars. 

Through the sound of the wind whipping around you – how are you suspended in midair, anyhow? - something clinks, and you look down to see you're wearing a suit of armor. It's dull and dark, catching the sickly light around you, and you can tell from its weight that it's more real than anything you've worn for a photo shoot. 

Something unknown wails in the distance but from horizon to horizon, nothing moves.

“It has begun”.

You whip around, and realize you're not alone: behind you in the ominous sky float three of your bandmates, armed in the same, strange way, their faces shrouded in shadow. Relief washes over you.

“I never thought I'd be so happy to see you dildos. I thought I was stuck in, uhhh, Magical Floating Nowhere Land by myself.”  
No response. The three sway slightly in the acrid air.

“Smells like something's rotting. Murderface,” you say, reaching out to give him a punch on the shoulder “didn't your Grandma teach you to wash your shorts once in a wh-”

Your fist knocks against Murderface's shoulder, and his entire body flops in the air like a rag doll. His skin feels like ice through his shirt, and it's the same hue as the paint you wear at shows, though there's none on him now. His head lolls on his sweaty neck, and Pickles and Skwisgaar stare at you through unseeing eyes.

“Guys, okay, stop, that ain't fuckin' funny.” Still no response.  
And that's when you notice they aren't breathing.

You puke suddenly, violently, and the bile falls to splatter against the ground far below. The husks of your friends say nothing. Corpses can't talk, after all.  
Distracted by your retching, you barely notice a fourth figure appear – the source of the voice.

“It has begun” repeats the man who killed Roy Cornickelson, “all the pieces are in place. The Metalocalypse is upon us. “  
Selatcia hovers, turning, gesturing in one giant sweep at the wastes around you; to the sloping expanse of the infinite horizon.

You are shaking with nausea and fury and confusion

His eyes meet yours and his voice shifts deeper, raspier and oh god where are his pupils there's black blood oozing from his mouth and something wails again, closer now - 

“All that you have dreamed, all you have transcribed: everything soon shall come to pass.”

Something white hot, like a paparazzi strobe, flares behind your eyes and your head is filled with

_burning monoliths falling from the sky_

Flash!

_undead, unnameable things with gills and glassy eyes rising from the sea_

Flash!

_the sky shakes, clouds crumble and fall_

Flash!

_a brown-haired man that you know but cannot name, twitching as some ancient, ageless, deathless entity takes control of his wiry body_

And Toki's next to you for a brief, brief second, face twisted into a snarl, staring menacingly at you through glowing red eyes

Flash!

_five faceless forms atop a world ablaze_

The shells of your friends drift lazily in the alien sky.  
On the barren plain far below, giant forms, old and terrible, lurch toward you, their massive forms looming over the horizon. They blot out the sky, eyeless faces raised towards you, teeth like scythes bared as their many many limbs stretch towards you, reaching, grasping...

Someone is screaming, and it takes several seconds for you to realize it's you.

\-----------------------

You lurch awake, still screaming (yelling, you tell yourself later, more metal) still sitting at your desk with your notebook in front of you, filled with frantic, frenzied scribbles that you are afraid to read. The clock in the corner blinks 3:42.

This is the third time since the funeral that this has happened, and you can't take it any more.

\-----------------------

You knock on the door as quietly as possible and get a sleepy “yeeeah?” in response. That's a good sign. Means he's not too wasted to answer, at least.  
“Pickles, it's me”.

When he responds, after a beat, his voice is hesitant.  
“Oh. C'mahn in.”

The room you walk into is cluttered with piles of clothes and beer cans, and smells like smoke and vomit. It's hard to keep anything clean with barely any Klokateers around.

Pickles is sitting on his bed in his underwear, working his way through a sixpack and a box of cigarettes.  
“Those can't be good for your asthma” you say, before you can stop yourself.

“Shaddup, you're not my mom” he says, cracking a wan smile. “What is it?”  
“I need some benzos. Or downers, or something. I can't fuckin' sleep. Weird dreams.”

“You 'n me both, big guy.” He gets up and starts digging around in the box on his dresser. “Can't find 'em, but I know they're around here somewhere. Can't find anything in this sub.”  
“Ugh, yeah”, you say. “Reminds me of the first Mordhaus.”  
“Heh, a little, kinda. No Klokateers, bad lighting, smells like fish. All we're missing is the landlady knockin' our door down for rent.”  
“Remember that time Skwisgaar invited her in?”

“Yeah! Back then he only knew, what, two full sentences in English, an’ I'm pretty sure they were both related to ordering Dominos over the phone. But he got her to screw him, and we didn't have to pay rent that month.”

“And that time that Murderface, uh, brought home that couch? With all the blood on it –?”  
“And when we tried to get him to get rid of it, he got all pissed off? We had to sneak it out the window while he was sleeping!”

In spite of yourself, you grin. “Good times.”

You both sit there, you picking at your chipping nailpolish, Pickles surrounded by a halo of smoke, lost in memories. After a while, Pickles speaks.  
“Christ, Nate, when did we get so old?”

\------

For that moment, he looks it. In the glow of the cigarette, there are lines on his face that you've never noticed before (or forced yourself not to) and the veins stand out on the too-thin skin of his hands.  
He looks more tired than you've ever seen him (save for the distant, distant first days of the band, when you let a tiny redhead sleep on your floor until the furies of his past – chemical or otherwise – would remove their avenging talons long enough for him to stop shaking.  
Not all your memories of the original Mordhaus are good.)

“We used to make music. Just make music – none of this people tryin' to kill us, or making underwater temples, or kidnapping us! No crazy supernatural bullshit!”  
“The worst part is, we should've known it was coming. We were just too stupid to notice.”

He crushes the cig out in an overflowing ashtray on the dresser, and looks up at you, brows furrowed.  
“Have you ever read the lyrics you write?”

Shit.

“Yeah, I read them. And, uh, I sing them too.”  
“But have you ever really looked at 'em?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”  
“Some of the stuff you write about happens.”

He's counting off on his fingers now, voice getting louder with each gesture; you wish you could hear him, but a phantom breeze has begun blowing in your ears.  
“--and Rejoin? _Rejoin_!? That song is years old! But part of it happened to us, just like you wrote it! I don't know how you did that; it's fuckin' spooky – ”  
The hallucinatory gale intensifies in your ears and suddenly, though you know it isn't real, there's a breeze blowing through the room as well; the cigarette butts on the floor scatter like leaves 

_Black cloud / countdown_

He's still talking but you can't hear him through the howling in your ears. But you're sure, you're so sure that he's blaming you

_Oceans blood / beasts drown_

figures, the last guy you really trust – really thought you knew – is throwing you under the fuckin' bus

_lights dim, Moon dies / Earth's heart leaks life_

You can barely hear yourself yell, but you do anyway.  
“It wasn't my _fault!_ ”

Something flashes again, and it's not wind in your ears now but water, your fingers are clawed, and something primal is twisting fingers of rage down your spine-- 

Flash.

And you're sitting on top of Pickles, with a hand at his throat and another fist pulled back, aimed at his face. He's looking up at you, green eyes wide, narrowing them when it's apparent you've stopped.

“You almost broke my nose once already. Are you gonna try again?”  
You let your arms fall to your sides and stand. “No.” 

As you reach down to help him up, you notice for the upteenth time since meeting him how tiny he is compared to you, and you feel a pang of guilt. You could have really hurt him.

“When'd you figure it out?”  
“'About a month ago” he says, pulling over a chair and sitting in it, its back to you “but I sorta knew fer awhile.”

He speaks for awhile, bitterly; rambling about how you'd gone into a trance the night all the copies of the album drowned, not speaking, destroying the master copy with an air of triumph. 

Seeing you write an additional stanza for Rejoin several weeks later; then watching Toki get stabbed as “one will give his life/the youngest virgin soul” repeated in his head on an endless loop. After the return to the sub, on a whim, reading about augurs and prophets and mystics; being blindsided by his realization of what you had become.

Silence again, and then he spits “you knew, you fucker. You knew you were doin' it. And you didn't warn any've us.”  
You squeeze your eyes shut just so you don't have to look at his face.

“It's my dreams, okay?! It just happens. I see stuff and I make it into lyrics and then I see it again! Actually happening! It used to be okay but now it's all weird, everyone's dead and there're ghosts that talk to me and _it's really fuckin' creepy and I CAN'T STOP IT!_ ”

He exhales sharply, and you can't see him, but you know him so well you might as well be able to. “I don't think it's your fault. And I don't think you can control it, and more than Toki cou-- can the ''everybody he loves dies” thing. But Nate --”

Something makes you open your eyes then, and he's staring at you, looking like he did when he knocked on your bedroom door in the middle of the night all those years ago; fuckin' terrified, shoulders slumped like the weight of the world was on 'em.  
“-what's gonna happen to us now?”

So you sit and tell him about your dream; about Selatcia's warning, the barren land, and the cold, dark dead sky. You tell him about the screams you hear at night and your visions of the end of the world. It takes you awhile to get everything out; you pause often and grasp at words, just like you always do. But he's patient with your way of talking - always has been - and he doesn't interrupt. 

You talk and talk while Pickles's face grows whiter, the pile of beer cans grows deeper, and the infinite ocean surrounds your tiny vessel. And somewhere in the blackness of the sea, an army of many-limbed creatures stretch their thousand hands towards the surface; reaching, grasping...

The Metalocalypse approaches.


End file.
